PPC Got You Down? Reach New Heights with These 5 Tips

Pay-per-click advertising (better known as PPC) has become a staple of internet marketing. These ads keep many websites alive, by providing them with a fee every time the ad is clicked. The site then gets visitors, the site that hosts the ad gets money… it’s a deal that works out well – at least in theory. After all, paying a $3 fee on a click that nets you $50 or more in sales is a pretty good deal, when it happens.

Like DVR viewers who record programs, then fast-forward through them, web surfers have trained themselves to ignore PPC material, or have browser add-ons which eliminate many forms of PPC content entirely. People who develop PPC campaigns have to put more effort and creativity into them than ever before. This can include clever selection of keywords, impressively worded ads, and optimized well-orchestrated landing pages.

The right PPC campaign can pay off in more ways than one, too. Major search engines will often charge less per click, if your campaigns are intelligently targeted. The right keywords, after all, can lead to having your PPC ad appearing at the top of any relevant search, and if your site is one that’s easy to use, it not only helps you, but it enhances the search engine’s reputation, as well. It led the searcher right to what he or she was looking to find.

Lift Your PPC to a Higher Level

Everyone who’s run a PPC campaign has probably looked at the ROI they were getting and felt a sense of disappointment. Your ads are well-worded, your keywords are all in place, the ads are in all the right places, but you don’t seem to be getting any clicks, or at least not enough to matter. This is one of the subtle difficulties with PPC. It can seem really easy to implement, but in practice it takes a certain point of view to make it really work.

Start Small

Chances are you’re a local business with local concerns. Start from there. If you go everywhere you can think of with your ads, you’ll be paying a lot of money with little to show for it. When you’re competing for a local area, or in some cases a specialized niche in the market, you know that aspect of the population better than any of the bigger companies can ever understand. Use that intimate knowledge to target your first PPC endeavors.

Speak to Your Audience

When you start small, you gain a huge advantage. A general audience is going to need generalized terms. When you focus your efforts, you can talk in a language that only your targeted audience will understand. If you reference local places by local names, people from that locality are far more likely to click. Likewise, when you reference special terms of your trade that only a knitter would know, or a machine specialist, or whatever interest or product your website promotes or sells, you’ll get people who share that interest to click, hoping to find something they’ve been hard-pressed to find anywhere else online.

Keep It Fresh

If you’ve already got a steady stream of clicks, and even some customers/viewers, there’s no guarantee that you’ll keep them, or that new ones will come in. The well-crafted keywords and advertisements that put you on the top of the page last week might put you on page 2 or 3 (or worse!) the next week. Every successful PPC campaign does a little work each week to change up the keywords, update the ad copy, freshen up landing pages, and even change up the places their ads are seen. A little extra effort each week can do wonders for your click rate.

SEO Is Your Friend

Your keywords may be the, well, key to more success in your PPC campaign. Thanks to tools like Google Search Console, you can get an idea of which of your keywords are most effective and those that may need to be reworked, or dropped entirely. Some keywords may be so effective they deserve their own set of ads.

Know What You Want

What’s the reason you want a PPC campaign? Do you want people to buy your products? Visit your website? Subscribe to your YouTube channel? The clearer you are about what people will get for clicking on your ad, the more chance you’ll have interested people clicking it. Plus, if you know what you’re really trying to inspire, you’ll be able to put in the right keywords and ad copy. Keeping this in mind at all times will help everything else fall into place.

Author Bio: Laura O’Donnell writes smart content on behalf of the digital marketing experts at The Marketing Zen Group. As an avid writer and learner, she loves to use her skills for engaging others in important topics in creative and effective ways. When she is not working, she loves meeting new people, traveling, and bringing her Pinterest dreams to life. Find her on LinkedIn and Twitter @LauraLjo11